Processing Time

I have worked with kiddos with autism for over fifteen years, as well as having my own son with autism. I'm used to waiting a longer amount of time for a response than what is considered average. People with developmental disabilities, as well as individuals with brain injuries have a longer processing time, so I wait...

I'm just now realizing that I have a longer than average processing time when it comes to my emotions. 

Feelings are unlabeled because I have no idea in the moment what is happening. 

I store my emotions like a chipmunk storing nuts for the winter, and then they explode before I even have a chance to make much sense of them. 

This is why I have a therapist to help me sort through the mess of feelings that confound and confuse me on an almost daily basis. 

Laughter, and joy are easier to accept, but sadness and anger I have labeled as bad, and off limits, so I do all kinds of inappropriate things with those emotions in particular. 

It is where my eating disorder came from, as well as self harm and dissociation. 

I turn my anger and sadness in the only direction I know, which is at myself. 

I have been taught some great skills from my treatment team, as well as from my yoga teachers, but they don't always work, and that is frustrating. 

Nothing is full proof, and when my tools fail me, I feel like a failure. 

My therapist tells me,"feeling is not being," and so feeling like a failure does not mean that I am a failure. 

Tonight I worked all day, went to therapy, and taught two yoga classes. 

I didn't have time to check in or acknowledge my feelings, but they still caught up with me. 

I came home, sat down, took a few deep breaths, and gahhhh...

I'm crying! 

Damn, I'm sad, happy, tired, and fucking confused...

Delayed emotional reaction in progress! 

I can't even get comfort when I need it most of the time, because when it hits me that I need it, there is no one around. 

It is no wonder that so often I feel alone...

I am not alone. 

I am loved. 

I am loved. 

I am loved. 

It just takes me awhile to feel it...

Riding the Waves

I am thinking tonight about the Yin yoga class that I teach at Darling Yoga. I teach it twice a week, and I love planning the postures, and choosing the right music. Yin yoga has taught me a great deal about riding the waves of emotion, and maybe that is why I am drawn to the practice. Yin is a passive type of yoga, with supported and long held postures. The poses are held for anywhere from three to ten minutes, with little to no muscular engagement. The idea is to allow gravity and time to delve below the muscles of the body, and deep within the connective tissues and fascia.  When I started teaching this class, the plan was to teach a class incorporating both yin and yang. I mainly practice a more yang type of yoga, which is faster paced, using more muscular energy and balance. I love that type of practice, but am actually more challenged by the slower and less energetic yoga. The students seem to have embraced this practice as well, and complain when I try to flow with a quicker pace, so I have dropped the yang.  On Monday, I had a student tell me that the practice on Sunday that I taught seemed to have released some stored up emotions, and they had been crying off and on throughout the day. I store my emotions like a pro, mainly because I'm afraid. I'm afraid that my sadness, grief, pain, etc...will last for all of eternity, and so hell no, I'm not going to go there! Being in a deep shoulder or hip opener for five or more minutes, breathing through the discomfort(never pain), allowing the body to release and let go, is an amazing lesson. Discomfort doesn't last forever. It ebbs and flows, and you are in charge of how deep you go. You learn that you can back out at anytime. You learn that you are stronger and have more stamina than you think. If I could sit down for a good cry, and have a teacher call out, "Five more breaths, you are doing great!," I would possibly be all for that shit! I still have so much to learn. I fear my emotions.  I work hard on accepting and embracing them, but I get tired, and I get disappointed. My navigational system is quite often faulty, and I stumble around without direction. I have no idea how to read a map, and I don't always trust myself to make it through. I tell my students not to worry so much about the destination...

I'm trying to take my own advice. 

"The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. 

Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. 

This is the miracle of surrender." 

~Eckhart Tolle

No One Listens

No One Listens

We pack our emotions into used cardboard boxes

labeling them with permanent black ink

without tender care

no crinkled tissue paper

or newspaper print

We haphazardly toss them

tape them

and try to forget

We arrive at our destinations

slamming car doors

eyes to the pavement

seeing nothing

shoulders caving in on broken hearts

We stride in brightly

 wide smiles and cheerful hellos

fucking liars

hiding behind name brand clothing

make up

job descriptions

dressed up to sound prestigious

fancy fucking words

flow from our lips

We make it sound so pretty,

don't we?

Angela Minard 2015©

Artwork by~ Audrey Kawasaki

No Apology Necessary

Tonight I yelled, slammed a door, and stomped through the house. Suddenly everything feels messy and out of control, and I want to cry, but there is nothing wrong, nothing that I can pin point, and there is nothing that frustrates me more than not understanding my own feelings. This swirling mixture of anger and sadness often rises from nowhere and I'm quickly caught in the vortex of a violent storm brewing within myself, without any warning. Sometimes I think I'm more afraid of my own emotions than anything else in the entire world. I've been through some frightening, traumatic and violent events in my life, and yet what terrifies me the most is losing control of my emotions, as if the anger and sadness that I unleash could go on and on in an unending torrent of tears and screaming rage. I yelled once, slammed one door, and stomped upstairs to the bedroom, which is a small tantrum, and certainly not as dramatic as what I fear. I have proof that I can control my emotions very well, and yet there is a sense that I have so much more inside that hasn't been released.

I actually wrote the above passage over a month ago, but I didn't post it because I felt a certain amount of shame over my outburst, although there wasn't anyone around to even witness it. 
This week was rough at work, and when talking to my supervisor on the phone, I began to cry. I was unable to hide the tears and emotion in my voice, and I apologized several times for being so unprofessional. I realize that when I'm apologizing for my feelings, I'm primarily apologizing to myself...seeking forgiveness, as if every thought and feeling I have is somehow wrong. As fascinated as I am about these new found emotions, they are also equally terrifying, and my first instinct is to run as far away from them as I can get.

What we hold inside is infinite, so of course there is much more inside to be released. 

Today, as I was teaching my yoga class, I encouraged letting go and making space, and it was then that it struck me that life is a continuous process of filling up and releasing. As I release trapped feelings of grief and anger, I make room for more love, more joy, and more acceptance. I allow and accept so much from everyone else in my life, but extending that same compassion, allowance, and acceptance of myself is something I will continue to work on. 

"I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was the one who seeks, and still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; It tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves." ~Hermann Hesse

Painting by~William Adolphe Bouguereau , 1884